Wrathful Impotence

Published:Proletary, No. 9, July 26 (13), 1905.

      Published according to the text inProletary.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1972,

      Moscow,Volume 9,

      pages156-160.Translated:The Late Abraham Fineberg and Julius KatzerTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

No.104 ofIskracarries a retort to ourfeuilleton“A Third Step Back”*(Proletary, No. 6), which spoke quite calmly
of the new-Iskragroup having made use of a printing-press,
supplies, and funds in the name of the Party, but having refused to return
Party property. The stateIskrahas been reduced to by its
irritation over this statement is to he seen in the language it has been
using, which is reminiscent of the Bund’s inimitable brand of
vituperation.Iskrahas courteously applied to us such terms as
“filthy swab”, “slanderous cowards”, and so on and so forth. All this
reminds one of the way Engels once characterised the polemic waged by a
certain variety ofémigrés:

"Each word is like a chamber-pot, and not an empty one at that”
(Jedes Wort—etn Nachttopj und kein leerer).[1]We have, of course, not forgotten the French saying, “Abuse is
the argument of those who are wrong”. We shall ask the unbiased reader
calmly to pass judgement on the cause of all this fuss. The new-Iskrists have
made no reply to a letter from the Central Committee asking them, after the
Third Congress, to return Party property. They do not recognise the Third
Congress or the Central Committee’s turn towards the Bolsheviks. That is all
so. However, the only conclusion to be drawn from such non-recognition is that,
as the new-Iskrists see it, they should return not all Party property, but only
part of it. This is so obvious that in its retortIskraitself now
speaks of “the possibility of dividing up all Party property”. If
that is the case, our dear opponents,why could you not have replied to the Central Committee’s letter in that
vein? Otherwise, it is beyond doubt that, however energetic the expressions you
have used, the Majority has rendered a full account of all its affairs by
publishing the minutes of the Third Congress, while you have rendered no account
to anybody concerning the use of Party property, have published no minutes at
all, but have only used bad language. Consider in a moment of calm the
impression such behaviour must produce on all thinking people.

Further,the Central Committee’s turn towards the Congress is displeasing toIskra.That is natural. But this turn is not the first to have taken
place. A year ago, in August 1904, the Central Committee sided with the
Minority. A year ago we stated in print and publicly that we did not recognise
the legality of the Central Committee’s actions. It may be asked: How did we
then behave with respect to Party property?We handed over the
printing-press, stores, and funds to the Mensheviks. Iskramay hurl as much
abuse as it likes, but facts are facts. We rendered due account and turned the
property over to our opponents wishing to fight in the Party spirit and to get a
congress called. Our opponents have been steering clear of a congress and have
rendered no account to anybody (except their own adherents, and even to them in
private, for no minutes of the “Conference” were kept, in the first
place, and in the second, nothing is known either of its agenda or of the scope
of its powers, i.e., the degree in which its decisions are binding upon the
Mensheviks themselves).

Thestruggle within our Party has ended in a split; it is now merely a struggle
between two parties, one of which is in the throes of
organisation-as-process. Today, looking back at the history of the struggle
prior to the split, anybody (of course of those whostudythe history
of their Party using the documents, and do not merely give ear to old wives’
tales, in the way practised by many who come here from Russia)—anybody can
clearly see the general nature of the struggle. The Majority, which has been
accused of “formalism”, bureaucratism, and so on, has surrenderedallits formal privileges and bureaucratic institutions to
its opponents—first the Central Organ’s Editorial Board, then theParty Council, and finally the Central Committee. The Congress is the only
      thing it has refused to give up. The out come has been that the Bolsheviks
      have restored the Party (or rather, as the new-Iskrists naturally think,
      have created their own Party), foundingalltheir Party
    institutions wholly on the voluntary consent of Party workers—first
    the Bureau of Majority Committees, thenVperyod, and, finally, the
    Third Party Congress. Our opponents, on the contrary, are holding on to
    their formal privileges and bureaucratic institutions given to them out of
    commiseration. Consider the following fact: have not Lenin and Plekhanov
    made them the gift of the Central Organ’s Editorial Board? When it calls
    itself the Central Organ of the Party,Proletarybases its claim on
    the Third Congress decisions which are not recognised by the Mensheviks, but
    have been clearly, precisely, and definitely recognised by the Party
    Majority whose composition is known to all. For its part,Iskra,
    which styles itself “Central Organ of the Party”, bases that
    claim on the decisions of the Second Congress, which today are recognised
    neither by the Bolsheviks (we have replaced them by the decisions of the
    Third Congress),nor by the Mensheviks!!That is the gist of the
    whole matter! After all, it was the Menshevik Conference that revoked the
    Rules of the Second Congress. It is thenew-Iskragroupthat is
      now clinging to a headingrejected by its own adherents!

EvenPlekhanov himself, who could never see eye to eye with the new-Iskrists in
matters of principle, but has made countless personal concessions to them,
launched more than his share of attacks against the Bolsheviks, for which the
new-Iskrists have been bowing and scraping to him— even Plekhanov has
declared that the Conference has dealt a death blow at the central institutions,
and has preferred to wash his hands of the matter. As for the
new-Iskrapeople, they go on calling themselves the
“Central
Organ”, and rail against those who tell them that their Party stand is not
merely wrong but downright indecent. The abusive language that has provided the
occasion for this writing is the psychologically inevitable consequence of a dim
realisation of that indecency. We shall remind the reader that even Mr. Struve,
who has often voiced sympathyin principlewithTrotsky, Starover, Akimov, and Martynov, and with thenew-Iskratrends
in general and the new-IskraConference in particular—even
Mr. Struve was in his time obliged to acknowledge that their stand is not quite
a correct one, or rather quite an incorrect one (seeOsvobozhdeniye,
No. 57).

Weare well aware that the mass of Social-Democrats, especially the workers, are
most dissatisfied with the split (but then, who can be pleased with it?), and
are ready to look for a solution“wherever possible”.We
fully understand this frame of mind and have every respect for it, but we would
warn all and sundry that a frame of mind is not enough. The formula
“wherever possible” is worthless, for it lacks the chief
thing—an understanding of themeansof putting an end to the
split. Bitter words, attempts to create a “third something”, neither
Bolshevik nor Menshevik, will not help matters, but will only introduce greater
con fusion. The example provided over the last two years by so powerful a
personality as Plekhanov is a practical illustration of this. Let bitter words
be resorted to by German Social-Democrats, who, like Karl Kautsky, have, in the
main, learnt of the split in the Party from biased sources. Their ignorance may
be pardoned, though their claims to judge things they know nothing of are, of
course, unpardonable. Russian Social-Democrats must at last learn to despise
those whose only recourse is to bitter words, who chop and change, hold forth on
the subject of “peace”, but reveal their impotence when it comes to
doing something real for the cause of peace. The real path to peace and unity in
the Party does not lie through hasty agreements, which will lead to new
conflicts and to new and worse con fusion, but through thorough andfactual
ascertainmentof the tactical and organisational tendencies of both
sides. In this respect we are most satisfied with the new-IskraConference, which has revealed the irreparable disintegration of the
new-Iskratrend. Their tail-ism in questions of tactics has been
smashed by the revolution, and their “organisation-as-process” has
become a laughing-stock. They have been left, on the one hand, by Plekhanov, who
has evidently been “enlightened” by the Conference not only with
regard to its organisational significance but also with regard to adherence to
principle on the part of the new-Iskrists.On the other hand, they have been abandoned by Akimov, who has called the
 promises or “principles” of the St. Petersburg Mensheviks “ahollow phrase” (Posledniye Izvestia,[2]No. 235). The
 Party’s Third Congress has rallied the ranks of one of the sides. The other
 side has been smashed by the Conference itself. It remains for us only to
 advise the “conciliators” to study the history of the split,
 examine the causes of the failure of Plekhanov’s conciliation, and refrain from
 putting new wine into old bottles.

[1]See F. Engels, “Flüchtlingsliteratur. II. Programm
der blanquistischen Kommuneflüchtlinge”,Internationales aus dem
Volksstaat, Berlin 1957, 5. 50,

[2]Posledniye Izvestia(News)—a periodical
published abroad by the
    Bund from 1901 till 1906. It expressed the Bundists’
    bourgeois-nationalist views.